AMD chief hails Intel-assisted 'transformation'

AMD president and chief executive Dirk Meyer has called the company's fourth-quarter 2009 financial results "another milestone in our transformation."

That is, a transformation from a money-losing microprocessor manufacturer in the same quarter last year, when it lost $1.424bn, to a profitable microprocessor designer in its most recent quarter, when it showed a "net favorable impact" of $1.224bn.

That income, however - AMD's first quarterly profit in three years - is due to the company's receipt of $1.25bn from Intel to settle their legal wrangling, a windfall that AMD promptly used to pay down a good chunk of its crippling debt.

As an AMD press release announcing the company's Q4 results on Thursday put it: "AMD reported operating income of $1.288 billion in the quarter, including a net favorable impact of $1.224 billion. The net favorable impacts were primarily from a legal settlement with Intel Corp."

Aside from that monumental cash infusion from Chipzilla, there was other good news in the quarter for AMD. Revenue increased to $1.646 billion, beating analysts' expectations of $1.49bn. That's a 48 per cent uptick when compared with the dreadful Q4 2008, and an 18 per cent increase when compared with the third quarter of 2009

Taken as a whole, 2009 was noticeably rosier that 2008 for AMD. For the full just-ended year, the company reported revenue of $5.4bn and net income of $304m. In 2008, those numbers were $5.8bn income and a loss of $3.13bn. ®